Mariia Zalata, 16 years old

Winner of the 2024 essay contest, 1st place

Horishni Sherivtsi comprehensive school of І-ІІІ levels

Teacher who inspired to write an assay -  Onufriichuk Iryna Deonyzivna

 

«1000 days of war. My way»

«A samurai has no goal, only path»

«Hagakure» by Miyamoto Musashi

 

My way…

What’s it like? Long and sandy? Short and thorny?

I don’t know, but I can say for sure: it’s mine. Each footprint on it repeats the pattern of my sole. But my path has one peculiarity.

Even if I walk it back without missing a single step, even if I’m in a car or on a rocket, I’ll never return to where I was.

Only through the clouds of memories do I observe my still childish face. It shines with a smile and naive hopes that a bright future awaits me. Its lips wish me a happy New Year and believe that it will be so. True, in recent days the class has started to gossip about the russian attack. But this is just the tabloids, right? Everyone thought so.

And only my friend and I were uneasy, because the Zaporizhzhia region is located between Crimea and Donbas. If the news is true, our home will be the first target.

We tried to ignore the fat red spot on our forehead. We only wiped the sweat off it with relief when nothing happened on February 17, but we didn’t unpack the grab bags.

And rightly so. As it turned out, we still needed them.

And then a message came to the person who lived across the street, whom we had once seen at a family holiday ten years ago, to a friend: “We knew.” February 17. A week late. In the evening, through the curtains under the streetlight, I saw my first ever armored personnel carrier.

A month later, there was a first tricolor in my life. It was everywhere: on billboards next to Putin’s quotes, on poles, on packs of pasta.

One morning, I saw a red rag from my window with a hammer and sickle hanging on a water tower that was completely painted yellow and blue. “I cry so as not to laugh.” Why? The first “Z” in my life passed by when I was frying potatoes with the neighborhood boys.

Enemies with machine guns passed by. Oddly enough, through the artificial pride I saw shame in their extinguished eyes.

There was almost nothing but bread and milk, and prices jumped to the camouflage helicopters above our heads. The self-proclaimed authorities were looking for those who refused to get a russian passport.

They paid some miserable 10 thousand rubles for it. They were buying patriots.

When school was approaching, but our troops did not, we realized that we could not wait any longer and started looking for a way to freedom. The “green corridors” were like that cat in a box, rather dead than alive. The enemies played with us like with little mice: they let us in once, but they would leave us standing in line for five days in the field without food or water if they wanted to. And if they wanted to, they would take away our phones or documents.

But we still got out. This is the piece of my path that tastes like victory. But it is only a sugar strip, because not everyone got out.

Dad stayed at home with my heart. He guards the house, because the enemies settle in empty homes. However, will they calm down just like that? Muscovites came to Dad and left his blood on the floor, when dad, through the crunch of his ribs, looked into the eyes of the soldiers and asked: for what? They were surprised.

“What, aren’t you afraid?” they asked. They don’t need a house. These predators feed on fear.

Now my path is slippery and foggy. I’m afraid to step off it, although I have no idea what awaits me there. The people around me look strange and unreal. I walk and pretend that it’s supposed to be that way, but I never stop looking back, at that carefree flowering path from which I was pushed.

No one will give me bonus steps to step on it again, but I can’t walk through the bog, as if my whole life had been erased. That peaceful path has become overgrown with grass. Now all I have is an anxious, painful, but my path of war.